[ closed ] it doesn't make us strong

[lyingheart]

WHO: Light Yagami & Annie Leonhart
WHERE: Nonah, NC
WHEN: Afternoon/early evening Sept. 10th
WHAT: Light volunteers to puppysit to free Annie up to go procure "Project: Stop Stealing My Clothing" necessities as dictated by Will Graham.
WARNINGS: Puppy damage?

Annie clipped the leash to the back buckle on Rex's harness, giving him a pat on the head as she straightened, ready to head back out. Her communicator slid into her back pocket, her government issued identification sat snug next to her debit card in a front pocket. It had occurred to her sometime after asking that she might have been able to tie Rex up outside the store while she went inside, but it didn't feel like the right response, and more pointless after she'd ended up accepting Light's offer to help in the first place. (Or distract himself; he'd been quick on the offer, and she guessed it was either the dog [less likely with how he spoke about dogs], or any excuse to get out of his own headspace for a while that had prompted him to it. She knew it wasn't because she'd asked.)

Rex slammed both his paws down next to the door, tail wagging as he waited for Annie to give him the go ahead to go bounding outside. It wasn't much of a cue. Turning the handle, he was already squeezing through once the door was wide enough for him to fit, pulling Annie through on after. He didn't make it far. She kept him on the steps while she locked the door behind her, more a habit since the great clothing disaster (for all she knew it was Minako's doing) than a fear of anyone trespassing while she walked to the train station.

She slid her keys into her pocket, speaking to Rex as they walked down to the street. She'd done some research into brittany pointers since learning that was the breed of dog Rex was mostly identified as by Bumblebee and Thundercracker. Most the information read like a list of unconnected traits, but intelligent and trainable kept coming to the forefront, and a consistency for establishing where, exactly, the puppy walked.

As it was, Annie kept him at her side, using a light tug on the leash to remind him to pay attention when a new scent or sound or visual movement distracted him. He tried darting off once or twice. When the initial burst of energy wore down to his usual levels, he was happy enough to walk along with her.

She raised her free hand when she caught sight of Light. Rex was busy sniffing at the people passing by on the sidewalk, wagging his tail at another coo of puppy as they walked past, thankfully not stopping to begin the litany of questions Annie was quickly becoming familiar with. Is he yours? What's his name? How old is he? What kind of dog is he?

"Light, this is Rex. Rex..." Did one introduce dogs to people? Annie had no idea. "This is Light."

Rex took a moment to realize this time they were stopped for social reasons, stretching his nose out and snuffling in Light's general vicinity. New person? New person! Unknown person. Play? His stub tail wagged and he ambled forward, right into Light's legs.

Comments

[godly]

It's difficult not to smile when a puppy shows so much interest and energy upon merely seeing a new face. The brush of a small four-legged creature against his legs wasn't a new sensation as of late (though Edgeworth's puppy wasn't exactly small), and Light grins despite himself. The boy looks a little tired, mostly around the eyes, though his casual appearance still manages to remain impeccable. Slim fitting jeans, a black short-sleeved, v-neck cut tee. He slides his communicator into his pocket as he crouches down and holds out a hand to let Rex get a good smell of him.

"Hi, Rex," Light greeted; it was friendly enough, as one would expect when one speaks to a puppy. But Light makes certain not to raise his voice in pitch as to not sound too silly, avoiding the "baby talk" some might be prone to when speaking to cute animals. "You're full of energy, aren't you?"

The teen reaches out again to scratch behind Rex's ears, if the puppy will allow it. While he does so, the cranes his neck up slightly to look more directly at Annie.

"He's disarmingly endearing."

Cute, he means. Cute.

[lyingheart]

Her eyebrows lift a millimeter or so. He certainly has an interesting word-choice for what she's sure really just means he thinks the dog is cute. Disarmingly endearing sounds like an action plan. Rex didn't notice anything more than tone, sniffing and then nuzzling at the offered hand. He gives a quick lick at Light's arm, shoving his head into his hand with the ear scratches. Attention is his favorite. Positive, dogie-focused attention is even better than a flying ball.

Annie looks down at Light, breathing out in a soft snort. "He's cute. Most of them are at this age." From the puppies she's seen around the shelter when she stops by to help earlier on Thursday afternoons, before she meets up with Tony.

"I half think he actually knows it."

She holds out the leash she has in hand. "Did you want to do the honors?" Being in charge of managing a puppy might not have been much of an honor, but she figured she may as well make the offer.

[godly]

Light looks at her and nods, standing to his full height and straightening -- but not before giving Rex one more gentle scratch behind his ears, the pup obviously enjoying the attention, as all dogs seem prone to do.

He reaches out and takes the leash, curling his fingers around the loop at the end, letting it fall slack while Rex still sniffs at his feet. "An honor, is it?" he asks, tinged with a well-meaning sort of wryness.

"Is that how you perceive this new responsibility of yours? An honor?" he continues, though this time the question is more sincere. Annie didn't really strike Light as a dog person, or someone who would willing gravitate towards pets (though he could be wrong; he isn't exactly an expert on her character), and thus the full explanation of why she finds herself currently with Rex remains beyond him.

[lyingheart]

Did she feel like this is an honor? He asks curious questions, but tracking word choice and meaning is something Annie can appreciate. She does the same, and she knows she chooses her words with particular care. What does honor mean to her, in this case?

"When someone entrusts you with what's precious to them, is it an honor? Or a burden?" Ridiculous as pets are in so many ways, and as foreign as they still feel, it didn't take someone familiar to see and understand Thundercracker's own attachment to Rex. The puppy had his unchallenged affect in return for an owner who hasn't been harmful, and overall, is more surprisingly gentle than most might expect a twenty-two foot tall robot to be.

Rex spends a moment or two trying to nip at Light's pants leg before settling in for walking, trotting with big, awkward puppy paws and perked up ears. He knows where they're heading, as much as Annie does.

[godly]

When Light walks, he's especially conscious of where Rex is; so small and awkward on his paws, it's hard not to feel as if such an animal is especially fragile this early in life. But it turns out that his concerns are mostly unfounded, given how eager the puppy is to walk along with them at the same pace.

"It can be both. Responsibilities indicate trust, but can be more burdensome the bigger they are," Light responds, his eyes down at Rex. The boy stuffs his free hand in his pocket. "Though it's all relative in the end; in this case, it's dependent upon how much you like dogs, and how eager you are to help."

He glances over to look at her directly.

"Anyway, it's hard to call a little guy like him a burden."

[lyingheart]

Rex pulls ahead, settling back in life after sniffing at a curb that doesn't look all that interesting in and of itself. Annie watches him in glimpses, looking forward. She rolls her shoulders in a small shrug.

"I don't have a reason to dislike dogs." Her experiences with them have been positive, though she knows how that's partly her introduction to dogs, and partly the situations she's been in. "Either way, assisting one of my guardians isn't a difficult task. He's undemanding."

A situation that works because Annie is equally undemanding in return. She glances back down to Rex again, expression softening around her eyes. She can never do what Thundercracker's done, take on another life to caretake and guard long-term. She has no guarantees when she'll be leaving, even if the Porter is put back online.

This government returned everyone to their homes five years ago. People who had even settled here, who had families. People who likely didn't all have lives they were returning to - something she doesn't forget, not when she sees the markers for empty graves (what a strange concept, still, when it's been funeral pyres to cut down the risk of disease, and due to land needing to be usable and not set aside for the dead), not when she sees and hears the whispers of what might actually be happening. Conspiracy fears are alive and well.

Really, no matter which world.

"And Rex has been... trying, but... he's a good boy." Her voice softens for those words, pitched for Rex's ears. She earns a wag of his tail in return, an ear twitching her way. Rex is a good boy.

[godly]

Light can't help but snicker a little at the high-pitched praise coming from Annie; a tone which he's been conscious to avoid himself. He brings up his free hand to his face to hide it, covering his mouth, as if feigning to clear his throat.

"Of course," he responds with confidence, even though he doesn't know Rex all that well yet. But it's nearly universally known that dogs in general are often well-meaning among those who treat them well.

The boy lets Rex pull ahead and sniff at something every once in awhile, keeping his own pace casual but not to slow, as he knows that Annie has an agenda today -- or at least, a plan to go shopping at some point.

"What do you mean by 'guardians', though?"

[lyingheart]

Smooth save, Light. Annie's sideglance his way is clearly for some other reason than suspicion about his sudden need to cover his mouth. She doesn't enjoy sounding like an idiot, but it does generate a specific response from Rex. He's behaving well. He deserves his own versions of praise.

Goodness knew he wasn't going to like what she had in mind with her shopping list, if things worked out as Will promised.

"Legal guardians?" She leaves it as a question, wondering if that's enough to answer his question. She could apply for emancipation, under a series of proven obligations that she knew she could meet, at a certain cost to herself and what she could spend her time on in the meantime. Everything was about compromises, and hers had been with alien robotics.

Starscream hadn't been the most sound choice, and she admitted she'd underestimated the depths of his egocentric stupidity, but he was as much a fool for his own incompetence as anything else. Thundercracker and Knock Out have been decent, on another hand.

Rex picked up pace, recognizing this stretch of road leading up to the townhouse Annie lived in with Reiner, Aracely, and Kaine. His tail wags again, tongue lolling out. They were at the stairs leading to the front door in next to no time.

[godly]

He pauses as they reach the front door, looking over the structure. The housing in Nonah was similar enough to the housing in Heropa to evoke a sense of familiarity, though there often seemed to be more overcast skies than sun beating down on the residences, casting stark shadows. He can see why some would prefer it, and why others would want to avoid living here.

"Ah," he says, a sound of acknowledgement. Light's always been an independent teen; and at the age of 19, he's had no experience with having to deal with those he would have to call guardians, legal or otherwise.

(Friends, though, that was a different matter. Friends that seemed to be disappearing here and there, one by one.)

"Who else lives here?" Light asks, knowing that this question is likely related to his last.

[lyingheart]

Annie didn't find as many similarities, outside of the sense of repetition in design - then again, to her, the townhouses with their more cramped spacing, three stories tall, were almost akin to the settlements nestled against the Walls. Unfamiliar, but tolerable, with enough time. Nowhere was built to her more rural standards, in the mountains, nestled in the trees. The training yard and her father's voice presiding over it all.

She leaves the veritable fact of her guardianship uncommented on. Her choices sat well with her, of the ones that remained. Cybertronians were alien enough not to have the same sorts of expectations or predispositions toward a young human members of her own species often suffered.

"Reiner, Aracely, Kaine." Four people in a five bedroom house. She doesn't say that it always had a spare bedroom. Reiner and Bertholdt had shared the same room from the start. "No one's due back for another two hours." Hence taking him up on his offer, though her scheduling awareness comes off a little too pat happy and easy. She moves ahead, opening the door and gesturing for Light to step inside, Rex already happily pulling that direction. He knows treats are on the sill near the door. He always gets one when he comes back inside and sits like a good boy, which explains his sitting down and thumping his tail expectantly as he watches both Light and Annie with big, brown, hungry eyes.

Annie lingers near the door, not taking off her shoes. She's ready to be heading back out again, ready to be done with this chore and on to this ridiculous training. Not that company isn't nice... if she knew how to really enjoy company. She glances at Light, then looks back toward the kitchen. "You're free to help yourself to anything in our pantry, or the refrigerator. Glasses are next to the sink, utensils to the right in the drawer, plates and bows in the cupboards right above." That's being a good host, she hopes. She's not well versed in practice. Who was the last person she even invited over?

... Houka Inumuta, months ago? (Her social calendar may be more than a bit lacking...)

[godly]

Lights step in, eyes casually observing his environment around him. He eyes land on the treats on the nearby sill, an interesting spot for -- ah. The sight of little Rex plunking down on the floor, looking expectant, explains that much at least. He can't help but grin, despite himself.

Listening to Annie, it would be difficult to not call her a good host. He nods, taking note, though he isn't usually the type to indulge himself in food while housesitting, even when offered. Given that Annie shouldn't be gone terribly long, his stomach won't present him with an issue.

He's appreciative nonetheless, though. "Thank you," he responds easily enough. "How about Rex? Anything he is or isn't allowed to do? Well, other than the obvious."

Some people let their dogs on the couches, some are adamant not to. There are a multitude of preferences like that that very from owner to owner, and Light wants to make sure he doesn't make any wrong assumptions.

[lyingheart]

"No urinating inside the house, and no taking food that isn't his. Treats only when he's done something you asked him to do. Past that, we're trying to keep him from leaping up on people, but anything else is in progress." Such as not stealing from her drawers, but Light could either remember that first text today, or find out the hard way that Rex had some strange habits with attention grabbing. Annie picked up one of his treats, closing her fist and clucking her tongue before saying, "Sit."

Rex is already sitting, so he gives a pleased wiggle and expectant opening of his mouth. "Good boy."

In goes one treat, and Annie offers Rex a ruffling of the fur on his head, straightening up and grabbing a canvas bag hanging next to the door. With that, she heads back out, making sure Rex doesn't follow after her. He sits at the door after it's closed, lifting a paw and making an effort at demanding it open. The whining starts a few seconds after the door remains unbudging.

Rex looks around, fixing his big, brown eyes on Light. Where did Annie go? The food person is gone. Can this other person find the food person again? Would this other person provide food? Still whining, Rex looks between Light and the door. What's going on?